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Speaking for the USA, the ADS-B data stream you see on FlightAware's commercial feeds has military and police aircraft data filtered, even if those aircraft are

Speaking for the USA, the ADS-B data stream you see on FlightAware's commercial feeds has military and police aircraft data filtered, even if those aircraft are broadcasting that information. While ADS-B data reception is public, certain data types must be removed in your commercial offering per FAA. Near me in Puget Sound / Seattle are two intl airports, several military bases including a nuclear sub base, plus we're near the US / Canadian border. Air traffic as you can imagine is very interesting and includes state police Cessna's at night cruising for people speeding on Highway 18, military transport through JBLM (military base) but no fighter jet ADS-B. There's commercial air traffic, hobby planes, private jets, hospital and news helicopters. There's flight paths and local flight patterns. My current mystery are the small, black, unmarked DHS (I think!) helicopters that cruise Discovery Park lighthouse every few hours. They don't show up on ADS-B at all. There's more but you get the idea of how cool this all is. SDR is just wild. All you need is a Pi 3 and the PiAware image, the antenna and the 1050 filter they suggest. PiAware has a local webinterface that shows everything it's picking up but will be filtered later by FlightAware.

andylynch 5y ago
Have you tried ADS-B Exchange? They don’t use FAA data or apply their filters.
matthewmcg 5y ago
Unfiltered cooperatives like adsbexchange.com are also good ways to see what's up there that might be filtered on FR24 or FlightAware.
- bokohut 5y ago
  This, TLDR other comments. Others do filter data and the proof is in comparing in real-time all the sites along with actually seeing the vehicle and its location in the sky as some data can be delayed. I do not claim to be a plane spotter but given where I live I have picked up interest in the last several years after U.S. president 45 was elected and even more now with 46. 46 goes home nearly every weekend and the FAA flight restriction circumference borders right over my house. I also have the locational benefit of being inline with the flight path and approach for Air Force N for 46s comings and goings by plane which I have seen multiple times and I did see 45s helicopter once flying over enroute to NYC. Others may not be aware that there is the active deployment of fighter jets and air refueling tankers that support this FAA VIP air restriction. Since 46 has been elected and nearly every weekend he is home we experience non stop fighter jet thrust rumble at our location. One will not find these jets on any public data plane location stream yet the persistent presence of the air refueling tankers and the rumble from jets burning fuel on the ready makes it obvious of the jets presence for those in the know. Given the proximity to major airports the air refueling tanker is listed on adsbexchange and fly's in circles sun up to sun down topping off those jets. A few Sundays back we had pristine clear skys for both PV collection as well as noob plane spotting. Using binoculars on a tripod and sky scanning based on the tankers locations I believe I saw the back side of a F22 coming in to top off. I did get a picture about an hour later of an unknown jet type refueling off the air tanker after months of trying, I just smiled. As to the point of this "China" ban I personally know the value of such data in my own accomplishments as I see it akin to social engineering. Granted it is not war time so the tanker is broadcasting but I find it an oversight by those in charge to advertise where mother goose is as the goslings are never far behind.
  - matthewmcg 5y ago
    Not just the tankers—the VC-20s themselves are usually visible on ADSBExchange if they’re flying over areas that support Mode-S multilateration[1]. You see some interesting things this way, e.g. President Obama’s last flight on AF1 immediately following President Trump’s inauguration left Joint Base Andrews for Palm Springs[2], but made an unscheduled diversion to fly over the city of Chicago a few times at about 3PM Eastern—perhaps a nice gesture from the flight crew? I never saw that reported anywhere. [1]: http://www.multilateration.com/surveillance/multilateration.html http://www.multilateration.com/surveillance/multilateration.... [2]: https://www.dailynews.com/2017/01/20/ex-president-obamas-plane-diverted-from-palm-springs-to-march-air-reserve-base/ https://www.dailynews.com/2017/01/20/ex-president-obamas-pla...
C19is20 5y ago
Cessna's looking for speeders. I wonder what the ROI on that is: I'm guessing that's not all they do.
- hippocombinator 5y ago
  Aren’t speeding tickets known to be really big income for local governments? They can be hundreds of dollars; I’m sure it can work out financially if they can hand out enough, which seems likely from an airplane.
  - loeg 5y ago
    Can't give a specific driver a ticket from an airplane. I thought the main function of the planes was to follow extreme speeders, which has to be revenue negative -- just because there are so few and it takes so long -- but maybe a justified expense.
    - shagie 5y ago
      They are able to identify speeders without radar using fixed distance marks on the road and timing cars traveling between those marks. At that point, they are then able to give information about the car to the police on the ground for them to be pulled over.
      - jjwiseman 5y ago
        These days they all pretty much have systems like the Churchill/Shotover Augmented Reality Mapping System (ARS) which will give them target vehicle speed automatically. Even news helicopters use similar systems[1]. 1. https://shotover.com/videos/videos/kabc_tv_air7hd_with_xtreme_vision_and_skymap7_powered_by_shotover_f1_live https://shotover.com/videos/videos/kabc_tv_air7hd_with_xtrem...
        shagie 5y ago
        That's a rather neat system. Things like overlay of the street map on the display - makes navigation for aviation more useful too. https://youtu.be/rumcjbVzzLE https://youtu.be/rumcjbVzzLE
verst 5y ago
Are you feeding data to FlightAware for the free Enterprise Subscription? By the way I'm in Ballard (near Discovery Park) and do notice those helicopters too. Whatever they are - they seem to usually originate at KBFI which is where I'm currently doing my PPL. Can you pick up both ADS-B and VHF radio with your setup or would VHF require other hardware?
- jeffrallen 5y ago
  Different antenna. ADS-B is at 1090 MHz, and VHF air comms is more around 121-135 MHz. The same SDR radio can tune those two bands, but an antenna that works well for one would work poorly for the other.
- buildbot 5y ago
  Small world! I too live in Ballard and have been super curious what these have been up to, they fly pretty low and have a lot of hardware hanging underneath them.
jjwiseman 5y ago
Sorry if I'm being pedantic, but a lot of people do think that all military and police aircraft are filtered by FlightAware, FlightRadar24, etc., and that's not true. Right now I can find several military and police aircraft flying in Southern California on both FA and FR24. As far as I know, the FAA doesn't ask anyone to filter any types of aircraft or data. They do have a program, LADD[1]: "Aircraft owners or designated representative may request limiting aircraft data displayed (formally referred to as blocking) or unblocking of flight tracking data." If you use FAA data I believe you must honor the LADD list, but as far as I know owners have to submit every registration number or call sign that they want blocked (and that list has even been FOIAed[2]). It's always possible that a flight tracking site might decide they want to voluntarily block some type of aircraft, but so far there doesn't seem to be evidence of that that I know of. [1] https://ladd.faa.gov https://ladd.faa.gov [2] https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/faa-list-of-blocked-aircraft-barr-listasdi-block-list-34713/ https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/faa...
- natch 5y ago
  Thanks, good information. >If you use FAA data I was under the impression that FlightRadar24 uses crowd sourced data collected by users with radio receivers managed by Raspberry Pi if I recall correctly? That doesn't mean that they don't use FAA data, I just don't know that they do. And that's only addressing one of the two services you mentioned, of course.
  - touisteur 5y ago
    FR24 uses radars and multilat streams too in some countries iirc. Not all aircrafts have adsb but FR24 sees much more aircraft than ADSB adoption rate should show.
DarmokJalad1701 5y ago
> Speaking for the USA, the ADS-B data stream you see on FlightAware's commercial feeds has military and police aircraft data filtered, even if those aircraft are broadcasting that information I have seen military aircraft on FlightAware before. This one for example: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/SIKES85/ https://flightaware.com/live/flight/SIKES85/ It was a pair of KC-46s practicing in-air re-fueling and were actually visible from the ground. Some other examples: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/NITRO72/ https://flightaware.com/live/flight/NITRO72/ https://flightaware.com/live/flight/BISON2/ https://flightaware.com/live/flight/BISON2/ Pretty sure these are fighter jets given the speed at which they are maneuvering: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/COBRA66/history/20211108/1804Z/KEDW/KEDW https://flightaware.com/live/flight/COBRA66/history/20211108... https://flightaware.com/live/flight/COBRA44/history/20211108/1659Z/KEDW/KEDW https://flightaware.com/live/flight/COBRA44/history/20211108... https://flightaware.com/live/flight/COBRA52/history/20211108/1736Z/KEDW/KEDW https://flightaware.com/live/flight/COBRA52/history/20211108... You can basically check the flightaware pages for Air Force bases and find these.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  Not sure about those last three being fighters. One of them was going fast enough to be plausible, but the other two spent the flight in the 200-300 mph range. That's not much above stall speed for an F-16 or F-22, for example.
  - DarmokJalad1701 5y ago
    Agreed that COBRA66 and COBRA52 seem to be pretty slow for a fighter jet even though they were still flying loops at over 150 kts in one case. COBRA44 though seems to be in about the correct range.
    - jjwiseman 5y ago
      COBRA44 is a T-38 (trainer used to train fighter pilots): https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae00d6 https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae00d6 COBRA51 and COBRA66 are thought to be Beech C-12C Hurons: https://twitter.com/SkyCirclesR2508/status/1457773286935306248 https://twitter.com/SkyCirclesR2508/status/14577732869353062... https://twitter.com/SkyCirclesR2508/status/1457792699042385921 https://twitter.com/SkyCirclesR2508/status/14577926990423859...
YeBanKo 5y ago
> certain data types must be removed in your commercial offering per FAA. Can you link to source if it? Afaik everything transmitted by ADS-B is public including military and le. FAA allows mil or le to turn off ADS-B out if it can compromise their mission [1]. [1] https://www.aviationtoday.com/2019/07/23/new-rule-allows-military-aircraft-turn-ads-b-transmissions-off/ https://www.aviationtoday.com/2019/07/23/new-rule-allows-mil...

andylynch 5y ago

Have you tried ADS-B Exchange? They don’t use FAA data or apply their filters.

matthewmcg 5y ago

Unfiltered cooperatives like adsbexchange.com are also good ways to see what's up there that might be filtered on FR24 or FlightAware.

bokohut 5y ago
This, TLDR other comments. Others do filter data and the proof is in comparing in real-time all the sites along with actually seeing the vehicle and its location in the sky as some data can be delayed. I do not claim to be a plane spotter but given where I live I have picked up interest in the last several years after U.S. president 45 was elected and even more now with 46. 46 goes home nearly every weekend and the FAA flight restriction circumference borders right over my house. I also have the locational benefit of being inline with the flight path and approach for Air Force N for 46s comings and goings by plane which I have seen multiple times and I did see 45s helicopter once flying over enroute to NYC. Others may not be aware that there is the active deployment of fighter jets and air refueling tankers that support this FAA VIP air restriction. Since 46 has been elected and nearly every weekend he is home we experience non stop fighter jet thrust rumble at our location. One will not find these jets on any public data plane location stream yet the persistent presence of the air refueling tankers and the rumble from jets burning fuel on the ready makes it obvious of the jets presence for those in the know. Given the proximity to major airports the air refueling tanker is listed on adsbexchange and fly's in circles sun up to sun down topping off those jets. A few Sundays back we had pristine clear skys for both PV collection as well as noob plane spotting. Using binoculars on a tripod and sky scanning based on the tankers locations I believe I saw the back side of a F22 coming in to top off. I did get a picture about an hour later of an unknown jet type refueling off the air tanker after months of trying, I just smiled. As to the point of this "China" ban I personally know the value of such data in my own accomplishments as I see it akin to social engineering. Granted it is not war time so the tanker is broadcasting but I find it an oversight by those in charge to advertise where mother goose is as the goslings are never far behind.
- matthewmcg 5y ago
  Not just the tankers—the VC-20s themselves are usually visible on ADSBExchange if they’re flying over areas that support Mode-S multilateration[1]. You see some interesting things this way, e.g. President Obama’s last flight on AF1 immediately following President Trump’s inauguration left Joint Base Andrews for Palm Springs[2], but made an unscheduled diversion to fly over the city of Chicago a few times at about 3PM Eastern—perhaps a nice gesture from the flight crew? I never saw that reported anywhere. [1]: http://www.multilateration.com/surveillance/multilateration.html http://www.multilateration.com/surveillance/multilateration.... [2]: https://www.dailynews.com/2017/01/20/ex-president-obamas-plane-diverted-from-palm-springs-to-march-air-reserve-base/ https://www.dailynews.com/2017/01/20/ex-president-obamas-pla...

C19is20 5y ago

Cessna's looking for speeders. I wonder what the ROI on that is: I'm guessing that's not all they do.

hippocombinator 5y ago
Aren’t speeding tickets known to be really big income for local governments? They can be hundreds of dollars; I’m sure it can work out financially if they can hand out enough, which seems likely from an airplane.
- loeg 5y ago
  Can't give a specific driver a ticket from an airplane. I thought the main function of the planes was to follow extreme speeders, which has to be revenue negative -- just because there are so few and it takes so long -- but maybe a justified expense.
  - shagie 5y ago
    They are able to identify speeders without radar using fixed distance marks on the road and timing cars traveling between those marks. At that point, they are then able to give information about the car to the police on the ground for them to be pulled over.
    - jjwiseman 5y ago
      These days they all pretty much have systems like the Churchill/Shotover Augmented Reality Mapping System (ARS) which will give them target vehicle speed automatically. Even news helicopters use similar systems[1]. 1. https://shotover.com/videos/videos/kabc_tv_air7hd_with_xtreme_vision_and_skymap7_powered_by_shotover_f1_live https://shotover.com/videos/videos/kabc_tv_air7hd_with_xtrem...
      - shagie 5y ago
        That's a rather neat system. Things like overlay of the street map on the display - makes navigation for aviation more useful too. https://youtu.be/rumcjbVzzLE https://youtu.be/rumcjbVzzLE

verst 5y ago

Are you feeding data to FlightAware for the free Enterprise Subscription? By the way I'm in Ballard (near Discovery Park) and do notice those helicopters too. Whatever they are - they seem to usually originate at KBFI which is where I'm currently doing my PPL. Can you pick up both ADS-B and VHF radio with your setup or would VHF require other hardware?

jeffrallen 5y ago
Different antenna. ADS-B is at 1090 MHz, and VHF air comms is more around 121-135 MHz. The same SDR radio can tune those two bands, but an antenna that works well for one would work poorly for the other.
buildbot 5y ago
Small world! I too live in Ballard and have been super curious what these have been up to, they fly pretty low and have a lot of hardware hanging underneath them.

jjwiseman 5y ago

Sorry if I'm being pedantic, but a lot of people do think that all military and police aircraft are filtered by FlightAware, FlightRadar24, etc., and that's not true. Right now I can find several military and police aircraft flying in Southern California on both FA and FR24. As far as I know, the FAA doesn't ask anyone to filter any types of aircraft or data. They do have a program, LADD[1]: "Aircraft owners or designated representative may request limiting aircraft data displayed (formally referred to as blocking) or unblocking of flight tracking data." If you use FAA data I believe you must honor the LADD list, but as far as I know owners have to submit every registration number or call sign that they want blocked (and that list has even been FOIAed[2]). It's always possible that a flight tracking site might decide they want to voluntarily block some type of aircraft, but so far there doesn't seem to be evidence of that that I know of. [1] https://ladd.faa.gov https://ladd.faa.gov [2] https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/faa-list-of-blocked-aircraft-barr-listasdi-block-list-34713/ https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/faa...

natch 5y ago
Thanks, good information. >If you use FAA data I was under the impression that FlightRadar24 uses crowd sourced data collected by users with radio receivers managed by Raspberry Pi if I recall correctly? That doesn't mean that they don't use FAA data, I just don't know that they do. And that's only addressing one of the two services you mentioned, of course.
- touisteur 5y ago
  FR24 uses radars and multilat streams too in some countries iirc. Not all aircrafts have adsb but FR24 sees much more aircraft than ADSB adoption rate should show.

DarmokJalad1701 5y ago

> Speaking for the USA, the ADS-B data stream you see on FlightAware's commercial feeds has military and police aircraft data filtered, even if those aircraft are broadcasting that information I have seen military aircraft on FlightAware before. This one for example: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/SIKES85/ https://flightaware.com/live/flight/SIKES85/ It was a pair of KC-46s practicing in-air re-fueling and were actually visible from the ground. Some other examples: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/NITRO72/ https://flightaware.com/live/flight/NITRO72/ https://flightaware.com/live/flight/BISON2/ https://flightaware.com/live/flight/BISON2/ Pretty sure these are fighter jets given the speed at which they are maneuvering: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/COBRA66/history/20211108/1804Z/KEDW/KEDW https://flightaware.com/live/flight/COBRA66/history/20211108... https://flightaware.com/live/flight/COBRA44/history/20211108/1659Z/KEDW/KEDW https://flightaware.com/live/flight/COBRA44/history/20211108... https://flightaware.com/live/flight/COBRA52/history/20211108/1736Z/KEDW/KEDW https://flightaware.com/live/flight/COBRA52/history/20211108... You can basically check the flightaware pages for Air Force bases and find these.

rootusrootus 5y ago
Not sure about those last three being fighters. One of them was going fast enough to be plausible, but the other two spent the flight in the 200-300 mph range. That's not much above stall speed for an F-16 or F-22, for example.
- DarmokJalad1701 5y ago
  Agreed that COBRA66 and COBRA52 seem to be pretty slow for a fighter jet even though they were still flying loops at over 150 kts in one case. COBRA44 though seems to be in about the correct range.
  - jjwiseman 5y ago
    COBRA44 is a T-38 (trainer used to train fighter pilots): https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae00d6 https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae00d6 COBRA51 and COBRA66 are thought to be Beech C-12C Hurons: https://twitter.com/SkyCirclesR2508/status/1457773286935306248 https://twitter.com/SkyCirclesR2508/status/14577732869353062... https://twitter.com/SkyCirclesR2508/status/1457792699042385921 https://twitter.com/SkyCirclesR2508/status/14577926990423859...

YeBanKo 5y ago

> certain data types must be removed in your commercial offering per FAA. Can you link to source if it? Afaik everything transmitted by ADS-B is public including military and le. FAA allows mil or le to turn off ADS-B out if it can compromise their mission [1]. [1] https://www.aviationtoday.com/2019/07/23/new-rule-allows-military-aircraft-turn-ads-b-transmissions-off/ https://www.aviationtoday.com/2019/07/23/new-rule-allows-mil...